


Be Useful Again

by Violent_entertainment



Category: Bleach, Darker Than Black
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:27:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28058421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Violent_entertainment/pseuds/Violent_entertainment
Summary: Ichigo was born a Shinigami, born a Quincy, born with a Hollow inside him. But Contractors aren't born that way.
Comments: 11
Kudos: 76





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place after Ichigo loses his Shinigami powers (the second time), and before he meets the Fullbringers.

“Something is very, very wrong with Ichigo.”

Kisuke froze, his prepared spiel about today’s special on candy dying on his tongue upon recognizing who had just come through his doors. 

Yes, something was very wrong indeed, for Isshin Kurosaki to be standing here now, looking how Kisuke hadn’t seen him for nearly two decades. Something like a shiver went down his spine. 

He glanced around. There was no one else in the shop – good thing too, as he would have gotten some strange looks – as it was still early in the day. He’d only just opened, after all. Walking quickly to the entrance, he turned the ‘Open’ sign back around so that it read ‘Closed’ to anyone who might want to enter, then firmly locked the door.

Glancing up and down at Isshin again, his frown tightened. “Tell me everything.”

__________

“Karin is at a soccer training camp for the weekend, and Yuzu decided to take the opportunity to have a sleepover with some girls from school and isn’t back yet. Ichigo and I were the only ones in the house, thank whichever god arranged that.”

Isshin looked deeply shook, ignoring the mug of tea Kisuke had set in front of him mostly out of habit. After a short moment that felt far too long, he seemed to steel himself to continue. 

“I went to wake him up in my usual way,” which Kisuke knew meant a friendly attack – not something he would personally enjoy waking up to, but knew Isshin only did as his own way of subtly training the boy, “and…” 

He paused again, before looking Kisuke dead in the eye, shock and confusion and deep parental concern waging war in his own. “Ichigo killed me. My gigai, I mean.”

Kisuke went stock still. “That is...most unlike Ichigo,” he agreed faintly, before cautiously setting his own mug of tea down on the table lest he drop it. “Have you noticed if he’s been having nightmares? Signs he’s re-experiencing the war? 

“Without his powers, it was our mistake to believe he’s harmless,” he continued with a bitter note of self-recrimination. “Humans kill other humans accidentally all the time. Ichigo’s always been physically strong for his age. And after fighting against Shinigami and Hollow opponents, he won’t be used to holding back anymore, especially if he was still mostly asleep and not fully aware of where he was or who he was attacking.”

Isshin thought to the way his son had stared at his nearly bisected body for a long, long moment – not in shock, or horror, guilt or terror, but instead with a kind of blank resignation – before swinging his legs over the side of the bed and stepping around the growing pool of blood to head into the bathroom.

He quickly returned with the shower curtain draped in his arms, and spread it out flat on the ground before rolling Isshin’s body onto it. He paused to haphazardly mop up the blood with a towel he’d left lying on the floor from the previous night’s shower, then dropped that on top of the body as well. 

Then, grabbing the ends of the shower curtain, he dragged the body out of his room, slowly and carefully down the stairs, through the house, and into the adjoining clinic. From there he transferred the body into a body bag, curtain and bloody towel and all, and stood scratching the back of his head in thought, as though flummoxed over what came next. 

Eventually he shrugged, and wandered back into the kitchen, locking the door to the clinic behind him and almost absent-mindedly popping the key into his mouth and swallowing.

Instantly he gagged – a key, especially one on a key ring – is no easy thing to swallow. Quickly filling a glass of water from the tap, Ichigo gulped it down, coughing and pounding his chest until he sighed with relief.

Then he dropped a frying pan on the stove and started cooking some eggs for breakfast. 

At no point during all of this did he notice or acknowledge his father’s spirit standing over him. 

At which point Isshin made his way directly to Urahara’s shop, stuttering flash steps whenever he could to shorten the travel time.

“It wasn’t an accident.” 

Urahara’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean.”

Isshin sighed. “Maybe he wasn’t trying to kill me,” he started, but cut Kisuke off before he could cut in. “but he wasn’t trying not to either. He knew what he was doing when he attacked, and didn’t care whether I was killed or simply incapacitated. Either was an acceptable option to him. I could see it – that cold indifference – in his eyes.”

He closed his own eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them, they burned with rage. “He looked like Ichigo. He knew his way around the house. But Kisuke, that wasn’t _my son_.”

One of Kisuke’s hands instinctually drifted down from the table to land on the handle of the cane resting in his lap, before it floated back up as if it had never left.

“I agree this situation is unsettling. But impersonation is only _one_ possibility.”

“I have proof,” Isshin gritted out. 

“Let’s hear it, then.”

“He didn’t kill my body with a blow, or with a blade. He used _spiritual power_.”


	2. Chapter 2

“Woah, kid,” Mao shouted, jumping out of the way of another crescent shaped blade of air flung his way by the orange-haired teenager. It sliced the coffee table in half and knocked over the TV, shattering the screen. 

“We’re not here to fight! We’re here to explain things!”

The teenage contractor paused. 

“Yeah, that’s right. The cat is talking,” Mao replied, cautiously un-arching his back so the hair went flat, then licking a paw to look more non-threatening. “Would you like to know how?”

The teen lowered his hand, the red glow of his pupils fading back to black. “You some friend of Yoruichi?” he finally asked.

“Yoru-who? Nah, kid. You mind if I smoke in here?" The man stepping onto the second floor landing, now that the fight was apparently over, asked, pulling a cigar from his pocket. 

The newly-born contractor scowled. “The old man has a rule against it.”

“Your old man the one in the body bag in the clinic?”

“Yes,” the kid answered, without an ounce of guilt or remorse. 

Good grief, they’d found the baby contractor alright.

“Well, he certainly can’t object anymore.”

“He was worried about second-hand smoke. My sisters still live here,” the kid countered.

The man sighed. “Sisters, huh? You’ll get along great with Hei then.”

The man in question, dressed in all black except for the lining of his coat, which was a dark green, came out of the kitchen, having ducked in at some point to leave his cat friend to play target practice. 

“I wouldn’t light that if I were you,” Hei said.

“You crazy fucker,” the man on the landing replied, disgustedly tucking the cigar back into his coat. “You were supposed to wait until the rest of us left. We haven’t even brought the body in yet.”

“What body? The only reason I’m not killing you all now for breaking into my house is because _he_ ,” the teen jerked a thumb at the cat, “said you were going to explain things.”

The man on the landing sighed. “We’re going to blow up your house, kid. You did an okay job picking up after offing your old man, but you’ve since made a bit too much of a mess for us to pass this off as even a particularly violent burglary,” he stated, sweeping a hand out toward the destruction in the living room. The coffee table and television hadn't been the only casualties.

“And we’d still have to explain _you_ being gone. So Hei here turned on the gas from your stove, then we’ll carry in the body we have waiting in the trunk of the car, and let it blow. Two bodies, clear cause of death, we’re in the clear.”

“I’ve opened all the oxygen tanks in the clinic as well,” Hei put in. “Should make the fire spread faster."

“And there you have it,” the man on the landing replied.

“What makes you think I’m going to let you blow up my house?” The teen asked, crossing his arms. “And that explains _what_ exactly?”

The cat jumped up on the back of the couch. Well, the bottom of the couch – it was currently upside-down. “Feeling any compulsions right about now, little baby contractor?”

The kid frowned. “What’d you call me?”

“Contractor,” the man on the landing said. “It’s what you three are,” he added, gesturing down at the group on the floor below.

“I wouldn’t put it off too long,” the cat put in. “If you have something you feel like you really need to do right now, and I don’t mean killing us, I’d do it, no matter how strange.”

The kid frowned harder, before his face twisted into confusion. Picking up the television remote from among the remains of the coffee table, he contemplated it for a moment, then popped open the back, pulled out the batteries, and swallowed them down like candies.

The cat’s tail twitched back and forth. “Hmph. Not the worst I’ve seen. You’ll want to carry around something smaller and easier to swallow. Gravel, maybe.” 

“Why did I do that? What’s a contractor?” the kid asked, not sounding scared so much as he did annoyed.

“It means, kid, you’re now an inhuman monster with creepy powers,” the man on the landing drawled. “But at least you’re handicapped by having to pay an unpleasant toll every time you use them.”

“So it’s something new, then,” the kid sighed, speaking more to himself than the others. “I didn’t get them back, after all.”

“You need to come with us,” Hei finally spoke. 

“Why would I do that?” the teen asked, tossing the remote in his hand like he was thinking of throwing it.

“The Syndicate can teach you control and give you purpose.” The tone was bland - not the most convincing argument he’d ever heard.

“I already got someone who can teach me control,” he replied suspiciously, fingers clenching as though he was considering testing out his powers against them, _again._

The older man paused coming down the stairs before a young woman’s voice replied tonelessly, “we were the first to arrive.”

The orange-haired teen jumped a foot in the air. “What the– ! When she’d get in here?! Someone put a bell on her!” 

Hei sighed, turning to help the silver haired girl standing in the doorway with a man – maybe unconscious, maybe dead – slung over her shoulder. “Yin, you were supposed to stay in the car.” She didn’t reply, but allowed herself to be led to a chair and sat down, while Hei lifted the body from her to drop in the kitchen.

“I think we’re getting a little off track here,” the cat growled. “And Huang? We don’t have much time left before someone else _does_ show up. Astronomics saw the new star same as we did. We just happened to be close by.”

Huang, as the older man was now identified, rubbed at his forehead with a sigh. “Kid, I’m sure you got someone in mind, but this contractor stuff? Ordinary people don’t get it. And you think this teacher of yours is going to be thrilled you chopped your father in half? Either you make yourself useful with a group that handles contractors – I’m talking about us, here – or you stick around to get arrested, and wind up dead fast. Because contractors don’t get to go to prison where they might be exposed as what they are.”

They all waited for the teen to think it over. He might still decide his best bet was to attack them and make a run for it.

“Make the rational decision here, kid,” the cat put in. “Life’s bad for a contractor alone.”

After a pause, he nodded. “Alright. I’m sick of not being useful anymore.”

______

Isshin, Kisuke, Tessai, and Yoruichi were on their way back to the Kurosaki house when they saw the plume of fire above the trees.

**Author's Note:**

> For people unfamiliar with Darker than Black, contractors are people with unique, inhuman abilities (like telekinesis, pyrokinesis, teleportation, etc.) but also, no conscience. This makes them great assassins.
> 
> No one knows how contractors are "made." Anyone can become a contractor at any time.


End file.
